WordPress For Dummies

Introduction

It was 2003 when I discovered the WordPress blogging software. Way back then (and in Internet years, that’s actually quite a lot of time) I used Movable Type as my blogging platform. My friend Chelle introduced me to the WordPress software. Try it, she said. You’ll really like it.

As a creature of habit, I felt reluctant to make the change. But I haven’t looked back. I’ve been with WordPress ever since.

Blogs are here to stay. Authors, students, parents, business owners, academics, journalists, hobbyists — you name it — use blogs as a matter of course.

WordPress has been a huge part of the blogging boom. Today, it’s the most popular blogging platform for personal, business, and corporate bloggers alike.

To a brand-new user, some aspects of WordPress can seem a little bit intimidating. After you take a look under the hood, however, you begin to realize how intuitive, friendly, and extensible the software is.

This book presents an insightful look at two popular versions of WordPress:

check.png The hosted version available at WordPress.com

check.png The self-hosted version available at WordPress.org

The book also covers managing and maintaining your WordPress blog through the use of WordPress plugins and themes.

If you’re interested in taking a detailed look at the blogging and website services provided by WordPress, you happen to have just the right book in your hands.

About This Book

This book covers all the important aspects of WordPress that new users need to know to begin using the software for their own blog (or blogs). I cover the two most popular versions of WordPress, highlighting all the important topics, such as these:

check.png Setting up and using a hosted blog at WordPress.com

check.png Locating good hosting services for the self-hosted version of the software (available at WordPress.org)

check.png Installing and setting up the WordPress.org software

check.png Navigating the Dashboards of both the hosted and self-hosted versions of WordPress

check.png Adding media files to your blog

check.png Finding and installing free themes to use in your WordPress blog

check.png Using basic coding to design your own WordPress theme or modify the one you’re using

check.png Using templates and tags in WordPress

check.png Installing, activating, and managing WordPress plugins

check.png Choosing to use the multiple-site WordPress Network option to host a network of multiple blogs on your domain

check.png Discovering the potential pitfalls associated with each version

check.png Understanding the challenges you face when running a WordPress-powered site, such as dodging comment and trackback spam

check.png Exploring RSS feed syndication

check.png Migrating your existing blog to WordPress (if you are using a different blogging platform, such as Blogspot, Movable Type, or Typepad)

check.png Discovering the power of WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS) to create a full website, not just a blog

check.png Upgrading your WordPress blog and staying up to date and informed about ongoing WordPress software development

check.png Finding support, tips, and resources for using the WordPress software

With WordPress, you can truly tailor a blog to your own tastes and needs. All the tools are out there. Some of them are packaged with the WordPress software; others are third-party plugins and add-ons created by members of the WordPress user community. It takes a little research, knowledge, and time on your part to put together a blog that suits your needs and gives your readers an exciting experience that keeps them coming back for more.

Conventions Used in This Book

Throughout the book, I apply the following typography conventions to guide you through some of the information I present:

check.png When I ask you to type something, the text that you’re supposed to type is in bold.

check.png When I suggest a keyword that you may want to enter in a search engine, that term appears in italics.

check.png Text that appears in this special font is certain to be a URL (web address), e-mail address, filename, folder name, or code.

check.png When I use a term that I think you may not be familiar with, I apply italics to that term to let you know that I’m defining it.

check.png In some instances, I give you a basic idea of what a web address or block of code looks like. When the text that you see may be different, depending on your settings and preferences, I apply italics to that text.

What You Are Not to Read

Read what you need and leave the rest — or pass it on to a friend.

This book covers the details of how to set up, use, and maintain the blogging tools available at WordPress.com and WordPress.org. I don’t intend for you to read this book from cover to cover (unless you’re my mother — then I won’t forgive you if you don’t). Rather, hit the Table of Contents and the Index of this book to find the information you need.

If you never intend to run a hosted WordPress blog on your own web server, you can skip Chapters 6–8.

If you have no interest in setting up a hosted blog at WordPress.com, skip Chapters 3–5.

If you aren’t interested in digging into the code of a WordPress template, and don’t want to find out how to apply CSS or HTML to enhance your design, you can skip Part V of this book (Chapters 12 and 13).

Long story short: Take what you need and leave the rest.

Foolish Assumptions

I’ll never know what assumptions you’ve made about me at this point, but I can tell you a few things that I already assume about you:

check.png You know what a computer is. You can turn it on, and you understand that if you spill coffee on your keyboard, you’ll have to run out and get a replacement.

check.png You understand how to hook yourself into the Internet and know the basics of using a web browser to surf websites and blogs.

check.png You have a basic understanding of what blogs are, and you’re interested in using WordPress to start your own blog. Or you already have a blog, are already using WordPress, and want to understand the program better so that you can do more cool stuff and stop bugging your geeky best friend whenever you have a question about something. Or, even better, you already have a blog on another blogging platform and want to move your blog to WordPress.

check.png You know what e-mail is. You know what an e-mail address is. You actually have an e-mail address, and you send and receive e-mail on a semiregular basis.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is made up of six parts that introduce you to the WordPress platform, including detailed information on two very popular versions of WordPress: the hosted version of WordPress.com and the self-hosted version of WordPress.org. Also included is detailed information on WordPress themes and templates.

Part I: Introducing WordPress

The first part gives you an overview of WordPress and the advantages of making it your blogging platform. You may think of WordPress as coming in two flavors: vanilla (WordPress.com hosted solution) and chocolate (WordPress.org self-hosted solution). In this part, you also discover some of the fun aspects of blogging, such as RSS feed syndication and reader interaction through comments.

Part II: Using the WordPress Hosted Service

Part II takes you through signing up with the hosted service for a blog. You tour the WordPress.com Dashboard, explore writing and managing your blog, find out how to change the various themes available in this version, and discover how to enhance your blog with widgets.

Part III: Self-Hosting with WordPress.org

Part III explores the single-user version of the WordPress software available at WordPress.org. You install this software on your own hosted web server, so I give you valuable information about domain registration, web-hosting providers, and a few of the basic tools (such as FTP) that you need to have in place before you set up a WordPress blog. I also familiarize you with the WordPress.org Dashboard, where you personalize your blog and explore many of the settings that you need to manage and maintain your WordPress-powered blog.

Part IV: Flexing and Extending WordPress

This part shows you how to add images to your pages, including how to create a photo gallery on your site. In addition, you discover how to find, install, and use various WordPress plugins to extend the functionality of your blog. This part also steps into the world of WordPress themes, showing you where to find free themes (including some that I designed at www.dummies.com/go/wordpressfd5e), as well as how to install and activate them.

Part V: Customizing WordPress

Part V takes an in-depth look at the structure of a WordPress theme by taking you through the templates and explaining the template tags each step of the way. You find information on basic CSS and HTML that helps you tweak the free theme that you’re using or even create your own theme.

If the topics covered in this part aren’t ones you’re interested in, make sure that you look to the bonus chapters at www.dummies.com/go/wordpress fd5e. There you find information on using WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS) to power a full-blown website as well as a blog. Additionally, these chapters show you how to configure the WordPress Multisite feature to allow multiple sites, which gives you the option of running a network of sites with one single installation of the WordPress software.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

The Part of Tens is in every traditional For Dummies book that you will ever pick up. This part shows you ten popular free WordPress themes that you can use to create a nice, clean look for your blog. Further, in this part you discover ten great WordPress plugins that you can use to provide your visitors (and yourself) with some great functionality.

Icons Used in This Book

Icons emphasize a point to remember, a danger to be aware of, or information that I think you may find helpful. Those points are illustrated as such:

tip.eps Tips are little bits of information that you may find useful.

warning_bomb.eps I use this icon to point out dangerous situations.

technicalstuff.eps All geeky stuff goes here. I don’t use this icon very often, but when I do, you know you’re about to encounter technical mumbo-jumbo.

remember.eps When you see this icon, read the text next to it two or three times to brand it into your brain so that you remember whatever it was that I think you need to remember.

Where to Go from Here

As I mention in the What You Are Not to Read section of this introduction, take what you need, and leave the rest. This book is a veritable smorgasbord of WordPress information, ideas, concepts, tools, resources, and instruction. Some of it will apply directly to what you want to do with your WordPress blog. Other parts deal with topics that you’re only mildly curious about, so you may want to skim those pages.

Also remember that this book has a couple of companion websites that I encourage you to check out:

check.png www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/wordpress: Visit this site and find the Cheat Sheet for WordPress For Dummies, 5th Edition.

check.png www.dummies.com/go/wordpressfd5e: The three bonus chapters that you find on this page tell you all about using WordPress as a content management system (CMS). You also find a chapter listing ten great sites that use WordPress for just that purpose. Finally, you get a chapter on how to host multiple websites, and whether and when to bring in the professionals. But that’s not all! You also find five free themes designed by me that you can use for your own site. (You’ll need the instructions from Chapter 11 to access them.)

Part I

Introducing WordPress

In this part . . .

Ready to get started? I know I am! This part of the book provides a brief introduction to WordPress and blogging. WordPress is unique in offering two versions of its software, and I tell you about each version so that you can choose the one that’s right for you.

Chapter 1

What WordPress Can Do for You

In This Chapter

arrow Seeing how WordPress can benefit you

arrow Participating in the WordPress community

arrow Understanding the different versions of WordPress

In a world in which technology advances in the blink of an eye, WordPress is blogging made easy — and free! How else can you get your message out to a potential audience of millions worldwide and spend exactly nothing? There may be no such thing as a free lunch in this world, but you can bet your bottom dollar that there are free blogs. WordPress serves them all up in one nifty package.

The software’s free price tag, its ease of use, and the speed at which you can get your blog up and running are great reasons to use WordPress to power your personal or business blog. An even greater reason is the incredibly supportive and passionate WordPress community. In this chapter, I introduce you to the WordPress software so that you can begin to discover how effective it is as a tool for creating your blog or website.

Discovering the Benefits of WordPress

I work with first-time bloggers all the time — folks who are new to the idea of publishing on the Internet. One of the questions I’m most frequently asked is How can I run a blog? I don’t even know how to code or create websites.

Enter WordPress. You no longer need to worry about knowing the code because the WordPress blogging software does the code part for you. When you log in to your blog, you have to do only two simple things to publish your thoughts and ideas:

1. Write your post.

2. Click a button to publish your post.

That’s it!

WordPress offers the following competitive advantages as the most popular blogging tool on the market:

check.png Diverse options: Two versions of WordPress are available to suit nearly every type of blogger:

• WordPress.com: A hosted turnkey solution

• WordPress.org: A self-hosted version to install on the web server of your choice

I go into detail about each of these versions later in this chapter, in the Choosing a WordPress Platform section.

check.png Ease of use: WordPress setup is quick, and the software is easy to use.

check.png Extensibility: WordPress is extremely extensible, meaning that you can easily obtain plugins and tools that let you customize it to suit your purposes.

check.png Strong community of users: WordPress has a large and loyal members-helping-members community via public support forums, mailing lists, and blogs geared to the use of WordPress.

The following sections fill in a few details about these features and point you to places in the book where you can find out more about them.

Getting set up the fast and easy way

WordPress is one of the only blog platforms that can brag about a five-minute installation — and stand behind it! Both versions of WordPress take you approximately the same amount of time to sign up.

remember.eps Mind you, five minutes is an approximate installation time. It doesn’t include the time required to obtain domain registration and web hosting services or to set up the options on the Dashboard (find information on web hosting services in Chapter 6).

When you complete the installation, however, the world of WordPress awaits you. The Dashboard is well organized and easy on the eyes. Everything is clear and logical, making it easy for even a first-time user to see where to go to manage settings and options.

The WordPress software surely has enough meat on it to keep the most experienced developer busy and happy. At the same time, however, it’s friendly enough to make a novice user giddy about how easy getting started is. Each time you use WordPress, you can find out something exciting and new.

Extending WordPress’s capabilities

I’ve found that the most exciting and fun part of running a WordPress blog is exploring the flexibility of the software. Hundreds of plugins and themes (designs) are available to let you create a blog that functions the way you need it to.

tip.eps If you think of your blog as a vacuum cleaner, plugins are the attachments. The attachments don’t function alone. When you add them to your vacuum cleaner, however, you add to the functionality of your vacuum, possibly improving its performance.

All WordPress blogs are pretty much the same at their core, so by using plugins, you can truly individualize your blog by providing additional features and tools to benefit yourself and your readers. When you come upon a WordPress blog that has some really different and cool functions, 98 percent of the time you can include that function in your own blog by using a WordPress plugin. If you don’t know what plugin that blog is using, feel free to drop the blog owner an e-mail or leave a comment. WordPress blog owners usually are eager to share the great tools they discover.

Most plugins are available at no charge. You can find out more about WordPress plugins and where to get them in Chapter 10. Chapter 14 lists my top ten choices for popular WordPress plugins available for download.

In addition to using plugins, you can embellish your WordPress blog with templates and themes. WordPress comes with a real nice default theme to get you started. Figure 1-1 shows the default Twenty Eleven theme, created by the team from WordPress, which is displayed by default after you install and set up your blog for the first time.

The theme’s default form is blue and white, with a handy application built in to the preferences that allows you to change the background color and insert an image to use as a header image. (You can find more about tweaking WordPress themes in Chapter 13.)

remember.eps The Twenty Eleven theme (shown in Figure 1-1) includes all the basic elements that you need when starting a new WordPress blog. You can extend your WordPress blog in a hundred ways with plugins and themes released by members of the WordPress community, but this default theme is a nice place to start.

Figure 1-1: Start a new WordPress blog with a theme.

Taking part in the community

Allow me to introduce you to the fiercely loyal folks who make up the user base, better known as the vast WordPress community. This band of merry ladies and gentlemen comes from all around the globe, from California to Cairo, Florida to Florence, and all points in between and beyond.

In March 2005, Matt Mullenweg of WordPress proudly proclaimed that the number of WordPress downloads had reached 900,000 — an amazing landmark in the history of the software. But the real excitement occurred in August 2006, when WordPress logged more than 1 million downloads, and in 2007, when the software had more than 3 million downloads. The number of WordPress downloads has broken the ceiling since 2007, and the number of WordPress users has climbed to the tens of millions and is growing daily. WordPress is easily the most popular content management system available on the web today.

Don’t let the sheer volume of users fool you: WordPress also has bragging rights to the most helpful blogging community on the web today. You can find users helping other users in the support forums at http://word press.org/support. You can also find users contributing to the very helpful WordPress Codex (a collection of how-to documents) at http://codex.wordpress.org. Finally, across the blogosphere, you can find multiple blogs about WordPress itself, with users sharing their experiences and war stories in the hope of helping the next person who comes along.

You can subscribe to various mailing lists, too. These lists offer you the opportunity to become involved in various aspects of the WordPress community as well as in the ongoing development of the software.

Joining the WordPress community is easy: Simply start your own blog by using one of the two WordPress software options. If you’re already blogging on a different platform, such as Blogger or Movable Type, WordPress enables you to easily migrate your current data from that platform to a new WordPress setup. (See the Appendix for information about moving your existing blog to WordPress.)

Choosing a WordPress Platform

Among the realities of running a blog today is choosing among the veritable feast of software platforms to find the one that performs the way you need. You want to be sure that the platform you choose has all the options you’re looking for. WordPress is unique in that it offers two versions of its software, each designed to meet various needs:

check.png The hosted version at WordPress.com. (Part II of this book focuses on this version.)

check.png The self-installed and self-hosted version available at WordPress.org. (Part III focuses on this version.)

Every WordPress blog setup has certain features available, whether you’re using the self-hosted software from WordPress.org or the hosted version at WordPress.com. These features include (but aren’t limited to)

check.png Quick and easy installation and setup

check.png Full-featured blogging capability, letting you publish content to the web through an easy-to-use web-based interface

check.png Topical archiving of your posts, using categories

check.png Monthly archiving of your posts, with the ability to provide a listing of those archives for easy navigation through your site

check.png Comment and trackback tools

check.png Automatic spam protection through Akismet

check.png Built-in gallery integration for photos and images

check.png Media Manager for video and audio files

check.png Great community support

check.png Unlimited number of static pages, letting you step out of the blog box and into the sphere of running a fully functional website

check.png RSS (Really Simple Syndication) capability with RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0, and Atom support (see Chapter 2 for more information on RSS)

check.png Tools for importing content from different blogging systems (such as Blogger, Movable Type, and LiveJournal)

Table 1-1 compares the two WordPress versions.

Table 1-1 Exploring the Differences between the Two Versions of WordPress

*CSS = Cascading Style Sheets ** Limited selection on WordPress.com

Choosing the hosted version from WordPress.com

WordPress.com is a free service. If downloading, installing, and using software on a web server sound like Greek to you — and like things you’d rather avoid — the WordPress folks provide a solution for you at WordPress.com.

WordPress.com is a hosted solution, which means it has no software requirement, no downloads, and no installation or server configurations. Everything’s done for you on the back end, behind the scenes. You don’t even have to worry about how the process happens; it happens quickly, and before you know it, you’re making your first blog post using a WordPress.com blog solution.

WordPress.com has some limitations, though. You cannot install plugins or custom themes, for example, and you cannot customize the base code files, nor are you able to sell advertising or monetize your blog at all on WordPress.com. But even with its limitations, WordPress.com is an excellent starting point if you’re brand new to blogging and a little intimidated by the configuration requirements of the self-installed WordPress.org software.

The good news is this: If you ever outgrow your WordPress.com-hosted blog in the future and want to make a move to the self-hosted WordPress.org software, you can. You can even take all the content from your WordPress.com-hosted blog with you and easily import it into your new setup with the WordPress.org software.

So in the grand scheme of things, your options are really not that limited. Look for information about WordPress.com in Part II of this book.

Self-hosting with WordPress.org

The self-installed version from WordPress.org (covered in Part III) requires you to download the software from the WordPress website and install it on a web server. Unless you own your own web server, you need to lease one — or lease space on one.

Using a web server is typically referred to as web hosting, and unless you know someone who knows someone, hosting generally isn’t free. That being said, web hosting doesn’t cost a whole lot, either. You can usually obtain a good web-hosting service for anywhere from $5 to $10 per month. (Chapter 6 gives you the important details you need to know about obtaining a web host.) You need to make sure, however, that any web host you choose to work with has the required software installed on the web server. Currently, the minimum software requirements for WordPress include

check.png PHP version 5.2.4 or greater

check.png MySQL version 5.0.15 or greater

After you have WordPress installed on your web server (see the installation instructions in Chapter 6), you can start using it to blog to your heart’s content. With the WordPress software, you can install several plugins that extend the functionality of the blogging system, as I describe in Chapter 10. You also have full control of the core files and code that WordPress is built on. So if you have a knack for PHP and knowledge of MySQL, you can work within the code to make changes that you think would be good for you and your blog. Find information about PHP and MySQL in Chapter 2.

You don’t need design ability to make your blog look great. Members of the WordPress community have created more than 2,000 WordPress themes, and you can download them for free and install them on your WordPress blog. (See Chapter 11.) Additionally, if you’re creatively inclined, like to create designs on your own, and know CSS, you’ll be glad to know that you have full access to the template system within WordPress and can create your own custom themes. (See Chapters 12 and 13.)

tip.eps The self-hosted WordPress.org software lets you run an unlimited number of blogs on one installation of its software platform, on one domain. When you configure the Network options within WordPress to enable a multisite interface, you become administrator of a network of blogs. All the options remain the same, but with the Network options configured, you can have additional blogs and domains and allow registered users of your website to host their own blog within your network, as well. You can find out more about the WordPress Multisite feature in Bonus Chapter 2, which resides online at www.dummies.com/go/wordpressfd5e.

Some examples of sites that use the Network options within WordPress are

check.png Blog networks can have more than 150 blogs. The popular electronics retail store, Best Buy, uses WordPress to power 1,050 local store blogs (example: http://stores.bestbuy.com/577).

check.png Newspapers and magazines, such as The New York Times, and universities such as Harvard Law School use WordPress to manage the blog sections of their websites.

check.png Niche-specific blog networks, such as Edublogs.org (http://edublogs.org), use WordPress to manage their full networks of free blogs for teachers, educators, lecturers, librarians, and other education professionals.

Chapter 2

WordPress Blogging Basics

In This Chapter

arrow Considering blog types

arrow Finding out what blog technology can do for you

arrow Outlining your initial blog plan

A lot happens behind the scenes to make your WordPress blog or website function. The beauty of it is that you don’t have to worry about what’s happening on the back end to manage and maintain a WordPress site — unless you really want to. In this chapter, I delve a little bit into the technology behind the WordPress platform, including a brief look at PHP and MySQL, two software components required to run WordPress.

This chapter also covers some of the various blogging technologies that help you on your way to running a successful blog, such as the use of comments and RSS feed technology, as well as information about combating spam.

This Crazy Little Thing Called Blog

Blogging is an evolutionary process, and blogs have evolved beyond personal journals. Undoubtedly, a blog is a fabulous tool for publishing your personal diary of thoughts and ideas; however, blogs also serve as excellent tools for business, editorial journalism, news, and entertainment. Here are some ways that people use blogs:

check.png Personal: This type of blogger creates a blog as a personal journal or diary. You’re considered a personal blogger if you use your blog mainly to discuss topics that are personal to you or your life — your family, your cats, your children, or your interests (for example, technology, politics, sports, art, or photography). My blog, which you’ll find at http://lisasabin-wilson.com, is an example of a personal blog.

check.png Business: This type of blogger uses the power of blogs to promote a company’s business services, products on the Internet, or both. Blogs are very effective tools for promotion and marketing, and business blogs usually offer helpful information to readers and consumers, such as tips and product reviews. Business blogs also let readers provide feedback and ideas, which can help a company improve its services. ServerBeach is a good example of a business that keeps a blog on the hosted WordPress.com service at http://serverbeach.wordpress.com.

check.png Media/journalism: More and more popular news outlets, such as Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, have added blogs to their websites to provide information on current events, politics, and news on regional, national, and international levels. These news organizations often have editorial bloggers as well. Editorial cartoonist Daryl Cagle, for example, maintains a blog on MSNBC’s website at http://blog.cagle.com/author/cagle, where he discusses his cartoons and the feedback he receives from readers.

check.png Citizen journalism: The emergence of citizen journalism coincided with the swing from old media to new media. In old media, the journalists and news organizations direct the conversation about news topics.

With the popularity of blogs and the millions of bloggers who exploded onto the Internet, old media felt a change in the wind. Average citizens, using the power of their voices on blogs, changed the direction of the conversation. Citizen journalists often fact-check traditional media news stories and expose inconsistencies, with the intention of keeping the media or local politicians in check. An example of citizen journalism is the Power Line blog at http://powerlineblog.com.

check.png Professional: This category of blogger is growing every day. Professional bloggers are paid to blog for individual companies or websites. Blog networks, such as B5Media (http://b5media.com), hire bloggers to write on certain topics of interest. Also, several services match advertisers with bloggers so that the advertisers pay bloggers to make blog posts about their products. Is it possible to make money as a blogger? Yes, and making money (at blogging) has become common these days. If you’re interested in this type of blogging, check out Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger blog at http://problogger.net. Darren is considered the grandfather of all professional bloggers.

Dipping Into Blog Technologies

The WordPress software is a personal publishing system that uses a PHP and MySQL platform. This platform provides everything you need to create your own blog and publish your own content dynamically, without having to know how to program those pages yourself. In short, all your content is stored in a MySQL database in your hosting account.

technicalstuff.eps PHP (which stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor — and PHP itself originally stood for personal home page, as named by its creator, Rasmus Lerdorf) is a server-side scripting language for creating dynamic web pages. When a visitor opens a page built in PHP, the server processes the PHP commands and then sends the results to the visitor’s browser. MySQL is an open source relational database management system (RDBMS) that uses Structured Query Language (SQL), the most popular language for adding, accessing, and processing data in a database. If all that sounds like Greek to you, just think of MySQL as a big filing cabinet in which all the content on your blog is stored.

Every time a visitor goes to your blog to read your content, he makes a request that’s sent to a host server. The PHP programming language receives that request, obtains the requested information from the MySQL database, and then presents the requested information to your visitor through his web browser.

In using the term content as it applies to the data that’s stored in the MySQL database, I’m referring to your blog posts, comments, and options that you set up on the WordPress Dashboard. The theme (design) you choose to use for your blog — whether it’s the default theme, one you create for yourself, or one that you have custom designed — isn’t part of the content in this case. Those files are part of the file system and aren’t stored in the database. So create and keep a backup of any theme files that you’re using. See Part IV for further information on WordPress theme management.

tip.eps When you look for a hosting